. >> what about senator hagel? will he be confirmed or is there discussion that he should pull back and allow the president to nominate someone else? >> i think senator hagel will be confirmed and republican senators have told me privately that they are not going to initiate the first full buster in history on the secretary of defense nominee. he's gotten a lot of grief from members of his own party, many in the senate. in the end, i think he'll receive the votes to be the next secretary of defense. >> including dick cheney who said he was among those nominees that were second-rate choices by the president. >> i'm not going to comment on vice president cheney's views of public service at this point. >> all right. senator durbin, we will leave it there. thank you very much for your views. >> thank you. >>> we're back now with the roundtable. mayor reed, we're going to get to drones in just a few minutes, even though we ended there. i want to pick up back on this politics now in washington over these automatic spendi